


Birthday boy

by Urdnot Wrecks (touchstone2015)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Control Ending, M/M, One Year Later, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 23:24:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6133675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/touchstone2015/pseuds/Urdnot%20Wrecks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You and Shepard never spent your birthday together.<br/>And now he's gone, disappeared when the Crucible fired.</p>
<p>But then you get a birthday surprise....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthday boy

You wipe the shower's deluge from your eyes as you try to make out the time: a few minutes to midnight, and to your birthday.

You and Shepard never spent your birthday together. He was off on Spectre business, or with Cerberus, or in custody before the Reapers hit Earth.  
And now he's gone: he disappeared when the Crucible fired, and the Reapers declared a truce. For whatever reason, they're now working with the other races to rebuild the galaxy after the war.  
And you're Commander of the Normandy in his place.

You sigh. Sharing your birthday with him didn't seem a lot to ask, and it never happened. You close your eyes and just let the water rush over you.

Suddenly Joker's voice comes screaming over the comm. “Imminent attack! Commander to the bridge at once! Imminent attack!”

This is no time for formality: you grab the tiny military towel and run, still dripping wet, to the lift.  
It's only one floor down to the CIC, but the lift seems to take an age; at least there's time to tie the towel round your waist. The towel is so small you look almost indecent; but at a time like this, who cares?

The lift doors open and you run full speed to the bridge, leaving a puddle of water on the lift floor.

You ask Joker what's happened. There's a panic in his voice you've rarely heard; and it's always foretold calamity before.  
“Eight, no make that nine, Reaper ships materialised around us just after midnight. We're entirely encircled.  
EDI and I have tried changing our course and speed, but the Reapers match them exactly.  
We're a sitting duck when their weapons go online.”

A pause, and Joker swallows. “Looks like this is it.”

Another pause.  
Something Joker said doesn't sound right, but it's taking you a while to get your head round it. Eventually, the penny drops.  
“Joker, did you say the Reapers weapons were off-line?”  
“That is correct”, says EDI.  
“The Reaper ships have full power, but the weapons systems are powered down, as far as I can detect.”

You move towards the cockpit windows and look out to the Reaper ships, so close you feel you can almost touch them.  
Then a tiny red dot emerges from the nearest ship, and moves closer.  
Staying some way off, it seems to be scanning the Normandy's cockpit.  
“The Reaper ship has released an oculus,” says EDI, as calm-voiced as ever.

Joker is nothing like so calm.  
“An oculus! Shit! One of them came close to tearing us apart when we approached the Collector base.”

And now red dots are pouring out of all the Reaper ships, collecting in front of the cockpit window.

“So that's why they don't need their weapons”, says Joker. “My friends, we may as well say goodbye.”

But the red dots aren't coming closer, and the Reaper weapon systems remain off-line.  
You ask EDI if she can understand the Reaper behaviour, but she seems as much in the dark as anyone else despite being a synthetic herself.

Then the dots seem to dance and circle, and form themselves into patterns.  
And then into words: a message, one word at a time.

HAPPY  
BIRTHDAY  
KAIDAN  
ALENKO

EDI breaks the stunned silence in the cockpit.  
“Commander, your date of birth is readily available on a number of extranet sites. It would be trivial for the Reapers to acquire this knowledge.”

Agreed. But why are they doing this?

While you exchange baffled looks with the crew, an oculus detaches itself from the main mass and positions itself just outside the cockpit window.  
Alerted by the proximity alarm, you turn to see the beam from the oculus scan the cockpit again.  
The blinding light washes over your body in a rising motion, over the tiny towel just clinging to your hips, your bare torso, your head, into your eyes.  
You're left completely sightless.

And then, incredibly, you hear laughter and cheering around you.

It takes several seconds for your sight to return; as you look out of the window again, you see the Reaper message has altered.

NICE  
OUTFIT

And then quite suddenly everything goes dark, the Reaper ships disappearing as swiftly as they arrived.

And then Samantha Traynor comes into the cockpit with your bathrobe, puts it around your astonished shoulders, and hugs you.

\---

“May I sit here, Commander?”, asks Steve Cortez.  
You're still in the bathrobe, in the canteen, now onto your second steak sandwich and your third beer.

“Of course,” you say. “And we're not on duty, and I'm hardly in uniform, so please call me Kaidan.”

“We'd planned a birthday party for you... Kaidan; it was originally scheduled for the afternoon, but after what we've just seen....”

“I really appreciate it,” you reply, and you really mean it.

Steve continues, “It's just you looked so lost recently, and we wanted to cheer you up.”

“Well, without Shepard, I was lost.”

“And that message: well anyone can find out your birthday, but only Shepard would have said, ‘Nice outfit’. And... I don't know, but I think that Shepard's alive, somehow, with the Reapers.”

You pause for a moment before replying.  
“I don't think that Shepard's alive; I know he is.”

Another pause.  
“And I intend to spend the rest of my life trying to find him.”

**Author's Note:**

> Unless my muse changes her mind, this isn't the start of a story cycle. I'd already written a fic about Kaidan seeking Shepard after the control ending; it's [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4335530) , but it doesn't segue directly from this tale.
> 
> I'm still not sure what the plural of oculus should be; presumably it's oculi, but that seemed a bit prissy. So I only ever referred to one of them throughout.


End file.
